Mindfulness Sessions
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is simply being aware of your thoughts, feelings and surroundings without judging or getting wrapped up in them. It means not living your life on auto pilot.
How does practicing Mindfulness help?
Practicing Mindfulness helps to shift from reactivity, being caught, being identified with things to a place of response, clarity, ease and care. It develops attention, concentration and focus.
Is meditation a religious practice?
Meditation is not religious; it is a science. The teachings come from the East - from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The process of meditation follows a particular order and produces results that can be verified.
The goal of meditation is to go beyond the mind and experience our essential nature—which is described as peace, happiness, and bliss. But the mind is undisciplined and it resists any attempts to discipline it or to guide it on a particular path. We are taught how to move and behave in the outer world, but we are never taught how to be still and examine what is within ourselves. Meditation teaches us to do this. It is a practical means for calming yourself, for letting go of biases and seeing what is, openly and clearly.
How does meditation help reduce stress?
Meditation allows you to respond to stress instead of reacting to it. During meditation, you experience a profound sense of peace and relaxation that can dissolve the changes produced by stress. It can decrease blood pressure and heart rate, and it can lower anxiety and depression, which are the typical stress markers. This helps you to break old habits patterns. When you start meditating, you release the struggle; the right action comes to your awareness more naturally. You’re more in tune with the thoughts that lead to healthy actions.
How does meditation help with pain management?
Statistics show that one out of three people in the US suffer from chronic pain. Just as meditation can help you cultivate healthy thoughts, there’s evidence that it can help decrease chronic pain. It is the resistance and anxiety towards pain that increases the suffering. Meditation trains the brain to be more present and focused, with an acceptance. This helps reduce anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
How does meditation bring mind-body balance?
If the mind is restless, caught in the prison of your 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day, worrying about the future, or suffering because of the past, then the body is also struggling.
In Western medicine, the body is categorized into individual systems and organs in order to study it, and to treat disease. But the body has an underlying intelligence that connects every cell. This intelligence allows it to perform every function the way it’s supposed to, if we do not interfere. Just as the different organs of your body work together for a common goal, the mind and body function together, too.
This is the reason why meditation is so effective when the body experiences an imbalance. Meditation takes you beyond your thoughts, to a place of peace and silence. It calms the mind and therefore calms your body. A calmed body can find its way back to balance.
Check Guidelines for Meditation.